


Listen to the Mustn'ts, Child

by TamerLorika



Series: Rebuild, but Not Replace [2]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: AU to an AU, Bittersweet, Domestic Fluff, Found Family, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, Unrequited Love, or at least a kind of happiness, unresolved crush, you can have a happy ending without getting what you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 05:40:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18309302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TamerLorika/pseuds/TamerLorika
Summary: "On Berk, the first limb you lost was celebrated as a rite of passage."Gobber finds himself adjusting to the loss of his leg in the home of newly-wed Stoick and Valka. A summer in the home of his two best friends, even with his new reality haunting him, would be something to celebrate.Except: Gobber has been in love with his best friend for his entire life.Except: He needs Stoick almost as much as he needs to be anywhere but here.





	Listen to the Mustn'ts, Child

**Author's Note:**

> No proofreading, we die like Vikings.
> 
> God this was supposed to be a short vent-fic, not this. Whatever, still cheaper than therapy. I wrote like the last 3000 in a jetlagged haze and another 1k on my phone at 1AM on a bus in Bosnia. If that explains anything. 
> 
> Sort of an AU to "Only for One Man"--what might have happened, if things had been different. You do not need to read it first. 
> 
> Title from 'Listen to the MUSTN'TS' by Shel Silverstein

On Berk, the first limb you lost was celebrated as a rite of passage. The Viking’s closest relative who had survived their own trial would help carve their replacement, and show the new initiate how to manage their new reality.

 

Gobber’s closest family was Stoick, and so when he awoke the first time, the first real time, he found himself in the sunlit front room of the earthen house that he knew better than his own. The comforting stink of cooksmoke and the misty heat of drying sod curled into his lungs as he came to with a gasp.

 

The house breathed its empty quiet, steeped in the ready stillness of a place not long left. Gobber let that expectant air comfort him—he was confused, anxious, sure there was something wrong, but this was Stoick’s home and nothing could hurt him here.

 

Trying to get a grip on himself, Gobber brought his hands up to scrub roughly at his eyes, stretching sore, unused muscles in his back, thighs, his—leg. His one leg.

 

“Oh,” he said into the empty air, and burst into tears.

 

That was how Valka found him, only moments later, as she bustled in though the open door with an apron-full of cleaned fish and her braids half-undone.

 

“Oh, sweet Gobber, that’s a good lad,” she said mournfully, dumping her fish on the rough-hewn table and rushing to his side. Her hands fluttered, unsure where to pat or hold him, and Gobber couldn’t breathe quite well enough to tell her what he needed. “Shh, now, and we’ll get you sorted, sure enough—deep breaths now, Gobber—” She made a frustrated noise, turning her head and shouting out the door. “Oh—Stoick, we need you now—Stoick!”

 

And just like that, the sun went out and the door was shadowed by the formidable form of Stoick son of Oskar, twenty-two year-old Heir of Berk, scowling and thunderous and everything Gobber needed right then.

 

“Aye, lets get you calmed down, y’bastard,” Stoick said gruffly, striding over to Gobber’s side and hauling him upright into a hard, fierce hug. Gobber threw his arms around Stoick and squeezed him back, holding a tightly as he was worth and letting the last of his tears soak into his friend’s shirt. “Yer alright, Gobber,” Stoick promised, rubbing his back. And Gobber believed him.

 

With a wet sniff, Gobber finally pulled back, roughly wiping his nose and eyes on the back of his hand. “Well, maybe I am.” He sniffed harder. “Not the first of us Vikings to lose a leg to those scaly bastards, and certainly won’t be the last.” He sucked up a breath and narrowed his eyes, taking in their surroundings properly. “So, y’got stuck wit’ the babysittin’. Shoulda known after cousin Bard went’n got burned up, they’d have to pick someone else. Gothi’d been better of pickin’ some poor bastard who’s already been through the Chop before, though, instead of saddling you with me.”

 

Valka elbowed Stoick out of the way, bustling back into view with a cup of water that she pressed into Gobber’s hand. “Oh, we asked for custody,” she told him. “Oskar suggested we leave you with Einar, of all people. Imagine that! Sure, he lost an arm a few winters back but he smells.” She wrinkled her nose. “And he cooks worse’n I do. No, you were comin’ with us, whether you liked it or not.” She swept back the cup and stalked off in a righteous huff, heading back out the door and into the warm, spring sunlight.

 

Gobber watched her go, unsure how to take it all. He supposed he had an excuse for being slow to process. Last thing he’d been aware, it had been the dead of night, and Berk had been ablaze in watchfire as a whole herd of Nadders took turns making salvos into the lamb enclosure on the north side of the island.  The fight came in bits and pieces—his axe had sung with the thrill of bloodletting, and the night had been alive with an energy that meant death and glory. He’d just finished felling his third victim when the shout rang out behind him, and then—

“I remember the bastard tha’ did it t’me,” he told Stoick, staring at the blanket instead of his friend. “But…not how.”

 

Stoick settled more comfortably on the floor, next to the pallet Gobber was stretched out on. He was tall and broad, a grown man in his own right, even though he’d only just hit twenty-two. His auburn beard, which had grown in embarrassingly patchy for most of his teen years, was finally starting to fill out, though he kept it cropped close still. His tunic was the grey work-worn one that Gobber himself had patched for him at least four times this season, with the torn-off sleeves, and in the slanting light Gobber could trace the splash of scar tissue across Stoick’s left shoulder from a Terror-bite and the freckles that were cropping up against winter-pale skin.

It was enough to make a man’s eyes water, and not in pain or loss. Stoick was really the most stunning man Gobber had ever seen, and even a lifetime of growing up in each other’s pockets couldn’t lessen or stain that.

 

“Tell me,” Gobber begged him, because he needed to know but couldn’t bear to hear it from anyone else.

 

Stoick worked his jaw broodingly for a moment, but he looked Gobber full in the eyes as he spoke. “Y’fell. I saw ye go down, but before I could get to you, another Nadder had landed by you—must’ve stepped on your leg, because by the time I could take it down and get to ye, it had crushed your shin-bone right to pieces. You were cussin’ and swinging that axe anyway, like a proper Viking. I think it was the blood loss that took y’out at the end.”

 

Stoick would’ve told him the truth, whether it had been for good or for ill, so Gobber let himself rest content in the knowledge he had not shamed himself.

 

Well, he was content for about a heartbeat. Then, his brain finally catching up with the events of the day, he sighed. “Whatever Val says, I surely can’t stay here. Y’re just married, after all, can’t have your newly gimp friend puttering about.”

 

He closed his eyes, not looking forward to the prospect of moving an inch, nevermind across the island. Stoick and Valka had taken advantage of their newlywed status to move out of Chief Oskar the Obscure’s house and onto the remote eastern headlands, where they’d built themselves a sod house into the side of a hill. Gobber had cut the lengths of plant and soil that Stoick had hauled out of the earth, and Valka had constructed the one-room hut they’d made their own in short order. They were far enough from the village for a bit of privacy, but close enough for protection.

 

Stoick frowned in the thunderous way he’d already adopted from his father. “You better not be contradicting my wife,” he said, and the unwilling curl of his lip as the words left his mouth made something in Gobber ache. “We’re takin’ responsibility for you as your recover. Don’t trust anyone else.”

 

Gobber was a brave man, and a good Viking. He was also hurt and alone and he didn’t have it in him to argue against a gift he wanted to accept so badly.

 

“Well, if you insist,” he mumbled, and Stoick crossed his arms across his barrel chest smugly.

 

“Now, you’ve been abed too long. Colborn the smithy helped me with the crafting of it—let’s get you upright.” Stoick heaved himself to his feet and produced a thick bole of wood with a padded end: a peg leg.

 

Gobber took the offering when he was sure his hands wouldn’t shake. His new stump throbbed in sympathy at the thought of using it, but the weight and heft of something Stoick had made for him, something that would be part of Gobber’s body, was too much to say no to.

 

He reached up his arm, and Stoick gripped it solidly.

 

“Alright, let’s get this done.”

 

\----____----

 

Gobber the Belch was in love with Stoick, son of Oskar, and had been since he was fifteen. The truth of it had settled into his sternum, bright and hot against his collarbone on some days, cold and heavy in his lungs on others. It was a familiar, comforting companion, and Gobber was proud to say that he carried it well. It was alright that Stoick had married, and that their wanton days of terror and mischief were behind them. Gobber even loved Valka, in his own way, and wished the her and Stoick all the good that Freyja could bless them with. He was content to fight at their sides and drink in their home and count them as his siblings-in-arms, his closest friends.

 

Gobber the Belch was in love with Stoick, son of Oskar, and likely would be for the rest of his life.

 

It didn’t matter, not really…until it did.

 

\----____----

 

Gobber had figured out his limits in a general way within his first week in Stoick and Valka’s house. He knew the garden outside their door was about as far as he could get without the constant ache in his leg and hips growing insistent; he knew staying awake the whole day without a nap at noontime was still beyond him.

 

He knew when to pretend to be asleep at night, safe on the other side of a privacy partition, while newlyweds did what they were wont to. He knew how to be quiet, when just listening was not enough.

 

He knew how much of a man’s uncovered chest he could catch out of the corner of his eye in the mornings just after dawn, before it was impossible for him to look away.

 

And he knew that he would go just about stir crazy if he didn’t have something to do with his hands _right now_ , which was what led him to the bench outside the house, swathed in fishing-net as he attempted to untangle a knot of trailing weights.

 

“You’re boon from Odin, Gobber,” Valka said, hiking up the path toward the house, fresh from the ocean. Her hair was a mess, the braid that morning not strong enough to hold together on the open sea. She, like her mother before her, was one of the fishers who plied the waters around Berk. The thought of it drove Stoick to distraction and had since she’d begun at only thirteen. The sea was a constant companion of the Vikings and fisher-folk of Berk, and they’d all learned both to respect and fear it—those who rode upon it the most often were also the most likely to fall victim. Still, Valka loved her duties fiercely and Stoick had lost every fight he’d ever tried to have about it.

 

“I’m just tryin’ to keep busy, what with you and Stoick out puttin’ food on the table,” Gobber said, not paying her much attention as he focused on a particularly tricky snarl of fibre.

 

“I haven’t had time to work on that old net in months,” Valka confessed, reaching the house and settling down on Gobber’s bench. Gobber’s focus didn’t waver, until he became aware of the rustling.

 

“Er, Val?” Gobber asked, looking up and seeing the woven basket on her lap. “Did you know your basket’s…wriggling?”

 

Valka’s grin was reckless and wild, the slant of her brows pure mischief. “I might know that, yes.”

 

“Why’s the basket wriggling, Val?” Gobber felt equal parts alarm and rabid curiosity at the sight of her expression alone.

 

“I’ll show, you, but you must promise to keep it a secret from Stoick,” she told him, holding out a pinky “Swear.”

 

Well, Gobber could hardly pass up a chance to goad Stoick with a secret that, he was sure, Valka would spill in a fortnight or less. “Done deal,” he said immediately, linking their pinkies as they both spat into the dirt.

 

Giggling like a naughty child, Valka slipped the basket lid off to reveal…a tiny Terrible Terror, nestled in straw.

 

“Great Wailing Nightmares, you have a dragon?” Gobber yelled, scooting immediately to the opposite side of the bench. “What in Thor’s sparkling name possessed you to…to…to do that? How did you even get a Terror in there?”

 

At Gobber’s yell, Valka snapped the lid closed and clutched the basket close to her body, protecting it. “There’s no need to shout!” she exclaimed. “It’s just a baby. A hurt baby; I found him on the beach with his foreleg broken.”

 

“Perfect,” Gobber snapped, struggling to his feet so he could go find his knife. “Makes it easy to put it out of its misery.”

 

“Gobber, you will do no such thing!” she threatened, standing with him and smacking him on the arm with her free hand. “And you won’t go telling Stoick about it either. You promised!”

 

“Didn’t promise not to kill it,” Gobber grunted, rubbing his sore shoulder. He wasn’t keen to contradict Val in the rage she was working her way into; he didn’t want to die. But he couldn’t just let this go, either “I just…what are you tryin’ to do with it, Val?” The question came out more pleadingly than he meant it to, but he just didn’t understand what was going through her head.

 

“Tha’s no kitten.”

 

“He needed help,” Valka told him, jutting out her chin, her voice imperious. “And so I’m going to help him.”

 

She glared down her nose at him, and Gobber was a bit cowed, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

 

The best way to get one’s way with either her or Stoick was to not let them smell your fear. “First thing’s first, that’s a girl,” he told her.

 

“Oh,” Valka said, cracking the basket lid to peer inside again. She reached in.

 

“Stop!” Gobber interjected, horrified. “I’ll show you how you can tell, but don’t touch the gods-damned thing!” He tried to snatch the basket from her again, but she warded him off and stepped back several paces.

 

“You can show me, but you can’t tell Stoick,” Valka pressed. “Thor’s sake, I know my husband’s a damned prejudiced fool, but I thought maybe you’d listen.”

 

“Listen to what, Val? Listen to you try to nurse a cursed dragon back to health? One of those things took off Gunnar’s fingers, you know.”

 

“They’re just animals,” Valka pressed back. “They’re easy to understand. She’ll only attack me if I hurt her, and right now I’m keeping he warm and safe.”

 

“They’re more than animals,” Gobber retorted. “And worse than ‘em. Kill you as soon as look at you, and they’re smart damned things. Trust me, Val, you’re not safe with a serpent in your house, that’s for sure.”

 

Valka looked thunderous, but in the way that meant she'd at least been listening. “She won’t be in the house; I’ll keep her in the sheep shed.”

 

“That solves only one of about eighteen of my concerns.”

 

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t need a single other person telling me what to do, now do I?” Valka snapped back tartly. “You can keep your concerns and shove them up your nose.”

 

Gobber threw up his hands. “If it kills us all in our sleep, I’m blaming you.”

 

She stuck her tongue out at him and stomped off, still in her heavy oiled sailing boots, toward the pen.

 

They only had one sheep, a female named Phil, who they kept for milk. Phil was displeased at being interrupted in her heath-cropping, and even more so to sniff out the stink of Terror.

 

Gobber had a feeling that the sheep shed would remain empty for the entirety of this ill-advised venture. The milk bottle probably would, too.

 

 

“Pig-headed Viking,” he grumbled at Valka’s back, obstinately returning to his detangling and wondering how much he would regret keeping his word.

 

\----____----

 

Days passed slowly in recovery, some better than others.

 

The Viking duty that Stoick and Valka had signed themselves up for was manifold, and Gobber couldn’t express enough gratitude for them. Not only had Stoick cut his wooden leg for him, he was also there with a heavy hand on Gobber’s belt and his shoulder as he walked further, longer. Stoick was always ready to grab him before he could hit the ground, or to give him something to lean on as he hobbled his way back into the house they all now shared.

 

To his intense embarrassment, Valka even helped him change his bandages, showing him how to wash and care for the wound site. “My da lost his arm a few seasons before he passed, you know,” she told him as his face burned beneath his beard. “I remember how this goes.”

 

It wasn’t easy, and Gobber fiercely missed his mother, who had lost both her legs—one to a Nightmare, one to gangrene—and the advice she was sure to have had. Still, they managed, and by the first Thor’s Day after waking up, things almost started to feel normal. Routine. As though he had always been here, underfoot and wrapped up in the everyday squabbles of life with Stoick and Valka.

 

He took on the bulk of the cooking, for something to do, and was happy to row loudly with Stoick over the merits of traditional bread loaves versus soured dough.

 

He distracted Stoick as Valka snuck off to care for her Terror patient.

 

He tried to clean, was complete rubbish at it, and played up his leg to beg off the chore immediately.

 

And every night, he and Valka and Stoick sat in the front of the house, nestled around the cookfire, and ate and talked until long into the night.

 

It was that Thor’s Day that all had seemed to go right. Gobber had kept himself quite busy that day, whittling a new set of utensils in the sunshine and taking a long nap in the rising heat of the afternoon. Valka told tale of two huge tuna that had been caught that day, and how they’d surely have salt fish that winter. Even Stoick hiked back from Berk looking pleased, although time with Chief Oskar often put a concerned gruffness on his face these days. As they sat around the fire that evening, sharing the spoils of the fresh tuna catch, Stoick began to whistle.

 

The first three notes registered with Gobber only as an afterthought, another symptom of his satisfaction, but the tune caused Valka to perk up brighter, and a mischievous spark danced in Stoick’s eyes. It was only a few bars later that Gobber recognized what Stoick was singing in his rough bass.

 

“I’ll swim and sail on savage seas

With ne’er a fear of downing

And gladly ride the waves of life

If you would marry me”

 

“That sounds more like my line,” Valka laughed, standing immediately and gesturing to her husband. “And I’ve already agreed to marry you, if you remember.”

 

“No scorching sun, nor freezing cold,” Stoick continued, chuckling, and Valka picked up after him.

 

“Will stop me on my journey!” she finished, and now Stoick was on his feet, too. “If you would promise me your heart—”

 

“And love me for eternity…” Gobber murmured under his breath, remembering how it went, even though he’d only heard the tune a handful of times before. Stoick’s gaze slid across him; he’d clearly been louder than he’d meant, but Valka only motioned at Gobber to continue as she grabbed Stoick’s hands in hers.

 

So Gobber sang, and Stoick and Valka danced, tumbling through the steps with practiced ease, and if Gobber flubbed a few notes or choked on a few words, no one noticed or cared. What mattered was the dancers and the fire and the night above them. What mattered was that Gobber was there, singing their song, clapping his hands and stomping his foot, unwilling to let the ache and swoop in his chest creep into his expression.

 

“And gladly ride the waves of life, if you would marry me!” he practically shouted, singing full-throat as the last notes faded into breathless laughter—Stoick tripped on his own feet, stumbling past his wife and sitting hard on the bench at Gobber’s side to save himself.

 

“Whoa—haha!” Valka whooped. “Almost got through that last twirl, Stoick.”

 

“Oof, ah don’t remember that song bein’ so long,” Stoick grumbled, half-leaning against Gobber and trying to catch his breath.

 

“You’re getting soft,” Valka teased, leaning over with one hand on Stoick’s knee to brace herself, kissing him soundly.

 

“I’ll show you soft,” Stoick growled, standing and hefting Valka over his shoulder in one smooth movement. The whoops of laughter that accompanied it told everyone that Valka was exactly where she had wanted to be all along. Grinning evilly as he caught Gobber’s eye, Stoick bounced her a little, causing her to yelp in dismay.

 

“Oh, you big oaf, I’ll—”

 

Stoick pinched her butt and happily strode away. “I’ll trust you to bank down the fire?” he called over his shoulder at Gobber.

 

“Aye, in a bit,” Gobber answered, as he was expected to. He listened to them go and latch the door behind them, although the window shutters were nothing but slats and provided almost no privacy.

 

He considered going to check on Phil, but the drink had made him tired and his leg was aching anyway. Instead, Gobber picked up the half-full tankard that Stoick had been drinking from and finished it himself, lips against the hand-carved wood. He hummed under his breath.

 

“But I’ve no need of mighty deeds,” he muttered, the song already stuck in his head.

 

\----____----

 

As Gobber grew more used to stumping around with his new center of mass, no one brought up sending him back to the village. He’d lived alone for the last year or so, after his father passed, and the house was haunted by the man's absence. Gobber had thought that maybe one day he’d return to it, raise a family there no doubt, but until he had one to raise it wasn’t much good for him to be stuck there.

 

Daily life was as smooth as could be hoped for, but the question rang, as it did in the back of all Berkians’ minds—when would the next attack be? There was no set pattern to follow, only the general knowledge of the ebb and flow of seasons; attacks came thick and fast in the summer months, and slacked off but for the most enterprising or desperate dragons in the deep winter.

 

Gobber found himself almost looking forward to an incursion, if only for a chance to prove himself, to seek retribution. He examined himself and found no trepidation or fear, only the fierce, fatalistic excitement he’d always known. He was a Viking, after all, and traumatic injuries were only marginally less common than a seasonal flu. And he was restless, still confined mostly to the homestead while Valka and Stoick went about the business of keeping life moving.

 

He was a freeloader, and he knew it, but working at the smithy was out of the question. The movement and strength necessary to work metal was simply beyond him as he was.

 

Dragon-killing, however? That was something he could still manage.

 

Probably.

 

At least, he was going to find out, as the eighteenth day after he woke, a pod of Hobblegrumps were spotted off the southern coast.

 

It was midafternoon, which was an odd time for a spotting, but it wasn’t unheard of. As the weather began to warm, dragons that had faced winter starvation became bold and ravenous. They were at their most crazed, and therefore their most dangerous. The warning horns were blaring from the direction of Berk, and Gobber was moving before he really registered it. It was a mistake; he hadn’t quite gotten the trick of running yet.

 

“Oof,” he grunted, his knee buckling beneath him as pain flared up the joint and thigh. He hit the ground hard, but was far from deterred. Scrambling up, he started down the steep heath path that wound the two miles or so toward the village. Stoick was surely down there for the day, maybe Valka too if the ships had come in early. Gobber needed to be there with them.

 

It was not an easy path to tread on the best of days, and Gobber’s leg ached fiercely from the start. “Stinking, beardless, mutton-brained, cold-cocked piss,” he swore in a steady stream as he limped along, stumbling into a strange gait that swung his prosthetic around under him rather than bending his leg. It helped, but not enough, and between the uneven steps and the uneven ground, he found himself on his knees once, twice, and yet again.

 

He didn’t even have his axe, he registered vaguely, just his bootknife and his bare hands.

It was only a quarter mile into his flight that he felt his breath stutter into gasping. “Ah can’t…be winded…!” he panted out loud, growling in frustration. “Ah can see…the house…!”

 

The edges of his vision were greying out and the sounds of the world around him rushed in as if echoing from a seashell, faint and far-away. It was completely unacceptable, because there were Hobblegrumps coming and he needed to be there. He’d take their limbs right back and show them what Vikings were made of. He’d show Stoick that he wasn’t just a free-rider on his kindness, and he’d stop feeling so blasted useless—if only the burning, gasping fire in his thigh would stop.

 

A missed step, a slip of the prosthetic—Gobber was up, and then the ground had risen up under his chin. He registered a deep sense of detachment and then an urgent agony. The plane he lay on spun dizzily and he rode it because there was nothing else for him to do.

 

“Gobber!”

 

Someone was calling him, and wasn’t that odd, they should all be down in the village by now.

 

“Dr’g’ns,” he tried to say, but his mouth was mashed into the dirt. He tasted blood.

 

“Gone,” the voice promised, “And not even close to my concern right now--what are you _doing_ out here?” There was a hard arm under his chest, rolling him to his side, then pulling him to sit upright. He groaned as his head spun the opposite direction.

 

“Stoick,” Gobber sighed, knowing that deep, annoyed growl anywhere. He relaxed into the arms around him, knowing Stoick could take his weight. “Supposed to have y’r back out there,” he muttered in disappointment. He was pretty sure his eyes were open, but he wasn’t processing anything he was seeing.

 

“You’re an idiot,” Stoick said succinctly, his arms shifting under Gobber, finding his center of gravity. With a chesty grunt, he deadlifted Gobber up so that he was holding him briefly wedding-style, before balancing him upright. Even though he was half-unconscious, Gobber’s stomach soared at the display of strength. Then he leaned over and threw up.

 

Stoick made a displeased noise, but did nothing else but steady Gobber and rub his back while he finished vomiting in pain and shock. Gobber would have ended up on the ground again, but for the steady presence of his friend beside him.

 

“Ah wanted…” Gobber finally said when the most insistent throbbing in his head had quieted somewhat. “…tae help.” Then, without permission from his brain, his mouth continued: “Tae prove ah wasn’t useless to ye. I’m recoverin’ just fine; can help th’ village again n’all.” He spit discontentedly into the dirt.

 

“Gobber, you have nothin’ to prove to us,” Stoick said quietly, taking Gobber’s weight easily as Gobber couldn’t help but lean against him. “And you’re a yak brain for goin’ out there only a fortnight into recovery.”

 

Gobber snorted, opening his mouth to retort, but there was a pressure under his hip and then Stoick had knelt to heft him over his shoulders like an adventurous lamb. He yelped, leg kicking out as he flailed at the sudden perspective-change.

 

“Yer…” Gobber struggled to find the right words, “a yak butt.”

 

Stoick’s belly-laugh jarred Gobber uncomfortably, which was rude.

 

“I know you’re ready to rush back out and kill things,” Stoick said, turning to stomp up the hill back to the sod house. “But give yourself a moment to recover, would you? If not for me, then for Valka and her anxiety.”

 

Gobber made a considering noise but was mostly trying to hold onto Stoick.

 

“You don’t have to rush to get better and leave us so soon,” Stoick said, quieter. “Not that—I _want_ you to recover. But you…I’m….” He went a few more steps before trying again. “I’m happy you’re with us.”

 

Gobber didn’t know whether joy or ache was the proper emotional response, and let both exist inside him.

 

“Not leavin’ soon if’n I can’t walk a mile,” he grunted for appearances’ sake, as Stoick ducked inside the front door.

 

When Stoick dumped him down onto his pallet, it was with deceptively gentle hands. “Good,” Stoick replied.

 

The dizziness hadn’t really left Gobber, and the tightness in his chest was fierce enough that he would soon have to admit to himself that he’d made a poor decision in trying to jog down to Berk. He closed his eyes, sinking into the pillow and trying to regulate his breathing.

 

Gentle fingers dragged across his scalp, smoothing back his hair. Gobber wanted to open his eyes, but it felt too good, and his body recognized Stoick’s hand instantly anyway. Desperate not to startle Stoick and break whatever strange spell had caused the unaccustomed touch, Gobber lay perfectly still as Stoick carded his hand through Gobber’s hair again and hummed the tail-end of a familiar song.

 

“Stubborn fool,” Stoick sighed. He left then, but didn’t go far. Gobber could hear him moving around inside the house, and it was such a comforting sound that he drifted off, aching be damned. He’d be ashamed of his failures when he awoke again. For now, proud Stoick was gentle with him, and wanted him around. It was more than enough.

 

\----____----

 

Valka was clever and stealthy and good enough at dissembling that Stoick may never have found out about her secret patient, but for the fire. Gobber had a moment in the chaos to think that the fire, of course, had been inevitable, and cursed himself for not considering it before it all went to Hel.

 

Perhaps clever Valka had planned for this, but it all came for nought as she was on the ground, dragged a safe distance from Phil’s shed, heaving for breath as Gobber hobbled buckets of water from the house pump. Stoick, who just moments before had hauled his wife from the fire, was now screaming in a shattering rage at the fleeing Terror.

 

“I’ll kill you!” Stoick roared, his voice completely unhinged. “I’ll eviscerate you! I’ll rend your wings from your back and your teeth from your skull!”

 

The depth of Stoick’s rage was concerning, but Gobber couldn’t do much but keep bringing water, keep fighting the flames.

 

Stoick and Gobber had been at the dinner table when Stoick had smelled the smoke. They’d been waiting for Valka to return from Berk, as she’d promised to bring back a pot of honey from her mother’s bees.

 

“You didn’t try to bake without using the bread pot again?” Stoick had asked suspiciously. “Something smells like green torches out there.”

 

Gobber sniffed in disdain. “My bread experiments are going fine, thanks. The last batch were barely singed at all. Besides, charcoal adds flavor.” He sniffed again, then sneezed. “Ah, no, but you might be right about the smoke.”

 

“What could—” Stoick started, going to the shuttered window. “—the shed!”

 

He was out the door in seconds.

 

“What could the shed?” Gobber repeated. “Not sure I understand the—Stoick, where are you

going?”

 

It was a much bigger production to get himself upright, but by the time he did and had stomped to the door, he saw what had caused the distress—the sheep shed was a towering column of flame, right there in the middle of the paddock.

 

Stoick was halfway across it already, headed straight for a shape on the ground. Gobber saw with mounting horror that the shape was actually a person—Valka, crawling out of the way of the worst of the flame. She was curled around something, and when Stoick reached her, grabbing her arm to pull her to safety, she let out a yell and the bundle she’d been shielding burst open and flew into the sky. The Terror she had been nursing let out a surprised and frightened screech, hovering just out of reach of fire and Stoick alike.

 

That was when Stoick had begun to yell, an agitated rage rising out of him with such hate and vitriol behind it that Gobber had been taken aback. Gobber had, in battle, shared bloodlust with his friend, and they’d both channeled the protective anger of Vikings defending their home. This, however, was something stranger, sharper, a fury that snapped and stabbed and screamed.

 

“I’ll slaughter you!” Stoick raised a grasping fist after the vanishing dragon.

 

“Stoick!” Valka gasped, admonishing even while wheezing. “Stop.”

 

“What do you mean stop, it could have hurt—”

 

“—only doing what she naturally—”

 

“—you, and burned the house with me and Gobber inside—”

 

“—you can’t blame her—”

 

“I have a right to defend my family!” Stoick roared over her, and everything fell silent.

 

Gobber stood uselessly with the bucket still in his hand, eyes wide and unable to move. Stoick and Valka were arrayed in opposition; Valka still on her knees in front of the crackling remains of the shed, Stoick’s body turned towards her in concern even as his aggression mounted toward the clear sky.

 

My family, beat Gobber’s heart, and he was sick with how quickly he grabbed and held onto those vague words with both hands.

 

The adrenaline leeching from him as the danger passed, Gobber’s thigh muscles twinged and he wobbled, breaking the stony tableaux. Stoick turned toward him, fire still burning in his gaze and the swell of his chest; Gobber went for Valka, who had begun coughing again. Instead of throwing his last bucket on the dying fire, he let her drink from it, and then Stoick was at her side, gathering her up tenderly. Valka’s spine and shoulders were stiff at first with disapproval, but Stoick held her so gently that she relaxed into it within moments, burying another cough into his vest.

 

Stoick’s anger had to be handled, managed; it came from places that Gobber knew needed a light hand. Anger born of fear and responsibility had plagued Stoick his whole life, the double-blow of the violence of Berk’s existence and the strain of the knowledge that one day he’d be the one to protect it all. Gobber felt the need to soothe it, to do what he always did and draw Stoick out from the mire of helpless emotion. But even in the heat of Stoick’s terrifying outburst, Valka had already done that—the moment Stoick had her in his arms, the worst of his aggression softened. He’d never hurt his wife, not for the world, and Gobber could see that deliberate calming was the best thing for Stoick now. He’d give them their moment, if not to talk through what happened, then to come to terms with it.

 

“Gobber, I’ll be back to—”

 

“No, no, I’ll make sure the fire’s out, then I think we all best leave it til morning,” Gobber waved Stoick off. The man’s voice was scraped raw and Gobber saw the unreasonable vulnerability in him.

 

“Don’t be long,” Valka cautioned Gobber weakly.

 

Stoick began to take her inside, but slowed and threw a glance over his shoulder at Gobber.

 

“Don’t strain your leg; I’ll come back for you if you take too long.”

 

Gobber waved them off and limped back toward the wreckage. “Aye, aye,” he said with practiced carelessness.

 

My family, beat his traitorous heart, and Gobber knocked on his own ribs with a sharp fist.

 

“Enough of that,” he muttered aloud. “He means his wife.” The worst part wasn’t that he believed it. The worst part was that he kept the words in heart anyway, like a thief.

 

\----____----

 

Valka’s mother’s yak was birthing, and so with a put-upon sigh, Valka agreed to spend the weekly rest day down in Berk, in her words, “up to my elbows in straw and placenta, all for a rather moody, ungrateful bitch—the yak, not my mother.” Gobber, who had been a victim of a random drive-by ass-biting from the yak bitch in question, did not disagree. Still, family was family, and Ragnhild was getting on in years, so off Valka went to do her duty.

 

As soon as Valka disappeared down the lip of the walking path, Stoick and Gobber turned to look at each other with the same thought in mind:

 

“Eelhalla,” they said in unison, and Stoick shot Gobber a grin that was pure mischief.

 

Eelhalla, which might be the worst name Gobber had ever come up with—and he had come up with it, no matter what Stoick said—was a very simple concept. It was an event that, ideally, lasted an entire day. The goal was to catch as many stream eel as possible in one afternoon, build a great fuck-off fire, and grill them until the thought of eating one more eel made the participants sick. It also involved copious amounts of clear liquor flavored with anise that Gobber’s cousin Brenn brewed out in his back shed. Eelhalla had once been an annual occurrence, but as Gobber was gutting and cleaning the sixteen eels they’d hauled back from the river, he realized they hadn’t indulged since Stoick and Valka had begun to court in earnest.

 

“Just like old times!” he crowed happily as Stoick dropped a pile of firewood beside their outdoor cooking pit.

 

“Aye, I remember you shirking wood-gathering back then, too,” Stoick said dryly, panting.

Gobber gave him his best shit-eating grin. “Now, now, I’m injured y’know.”

 

“Will be when I’m done with ye,” Stoick threatened fondly. Instead, he stomped inside to retrieve a huge jar, almost all the way full with what very much smelled of Brenn’s Vinn, and the traditional tiny stone cups to drink it out of. He passed one to Gobber, who rubbed his fishy hands on his pants before taking it.

 

“A toast!” Stoick called, holding his glass to the sky.

 

“To bad decisions and enough eel to choke a Nadder!” Gobber crowed.

 

Stoick roared his laughter and finished his portion in one swallow. Gobber, not to be outdone, did as well, and almost hurled immediately, so strong was the burn.

 

He sniffed hard, grunting his displeasure as Stoick made a truly horrific face. “Is it jus’ me, or does that stuff get worse every year?”

 

“Any worse’n I’ll be breathin’ fire m’own damn self,” Stoick affirmed.

 

They took another shot. It was just as bad as the first.

 

\----____----

 

By the time Gobber lost track of how many shots he’d taken, however, the liquor wasn’t nearly as bad. In fact, it felt smooth and sweet, the perfect counterpoint to the fourteen eel they’d managed between themselves. He and Stoick were sprawled out on the ground, leaning on the outer wall of the hut, content and bloated and fuzzy with drink. Stoick was telling a very intense story about wall joists, complete with sweeping hand movements, and Gobber didn’t understand a word of it.

 

He was used to Stoick’s tangents, mostly about his passion for construction, and settled in for interested grunting at the right points and staring at Stoick’s face. He leaned against the sod wall, listing a bit to the side, feeling floaty and content.

 

“And so these new…th’new…jois-sts,” Stoick stumbled over, making only a nominal attempt to hold it together to finish his story. “Slot inna ‘chother like—like—”

 

“A good, strong forge weld!” Gobber supplied happily. “With those smooth edges. Sen’chual an’…an’ sexy.”

 

Stoick nodded firmly, then looked like he regretted it. He clunked his head back against the wall as well. “Yes, an’ after he sand…sanded…’fter…”

 

Stoick trailed off, which took Gobber a moment to notice, but when he did, he saw Stoick had fallen asleep right there.

 

“Stoick,” Gobber hissed in a whisper, poking him. There was no acknowledgement at all.

 

“Stoiiiick.”

 

“You know he isn’t going to be budged,” came an unimpressed voice from the darkness, and Gobber whipped his head around to see Valka trudging into the firelight, looking exhausted and disheveled.

 

“Val!” Gobber greeted her. “Have some eel!”

 

“You had Eelhalla while I was gone?”

 

Gobber nodded cheerfully. “Saved you some’f Brenn’s Vinn,” he told her, which wasn’t a lie exactly—there was some left, although that was despite his and Stoick’s best efforts to kill the jug.

 

“Mmm, no, not appealing thanks,” she told him. “I’d sooner wash my hands in it; it’ll strip off the top layer of skin, so at least I stop smelling like cow-birth.”

 

“Healthy calf?” Gobber asked.

 

Valka smiled tiredly. “Aye, thank Thor. But there was a lot of pulling to be done, and that damned yak was stroppy as always. I’m ready to pass out altogether, although inside the house,” she side-eyed Stoick meaningfully.

 

Gobber took stock and found himself just as tired, suddenly. “I’m ‘bout done,” he said, which caused Valka to raise an eyebrow. “Alright! Done f’r certain. Now help m’move your husban’.”

 

Gobber struggled to his feet, stumbled outrageously, and caught himself on the wall.

 

“Leave him,” she said dismissively. “You know how deep he sleeps. If that time the sheep got into his dad’s house didn’t wake him, nothing you do will.”

 

Gobber didn’t know about the time with the sheep, and tried not to feel jealous. Instead, he tested his balance and, finding it workable, headed toward the outhouse. “I’ve gottae hit the head.”

 

“Just don’t hit yours,” Valka snarked. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She disappeared into the house, looking ready to fall face-first into bed.

 

Gobber took his sweet time, mostly trying to do as Valka cautioned and not fall over into the latrine. Odin damn it all, staying upright was hard when drunk and on a peg. He found himself staring into space for several beats too long, and shook his head to clear it. It didn’t help, and he had to grip the wall of the latrine to keep himself upright. At least he didn’t think he was going to be sick; he just wanted to be asleep so the spinning would stop.

 

It took a bit longer than usual to get back to the house, but he was relieved to see that Stoick wasn’t asleep outside anymore. Thank Thor for Valka.

 

Gobber stumbled in the door, hearing Valka’s unmistakable, squeaking snores from behind the privacy screen. Gobber happily shed his pants and tugged off his prosthetic, sitting down on the pallet hard—

 

\--and then almost sprang right back up again, leg or no leg, when he realized he wasn’t alone.

 

Passed out in only his smallclothes, taking up the entire pallet like he hadn’t care in the world, was Stoick.

 

He was snoring, and drooled just slightly on the only pillow.

 

Gobber stared for a long moment, trying to parse his feelings, settling on massively irritated.

 

“Get up,” he hissed, trying not to wake Valka. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. Gobber resolved to pushing at him, shaking him hard. Stoick’s snoring stopped for a moment, but then started up again with an effect that might have been comedic were Gobber not completely annoyed and staggeringly drunk.

 

“That’s my bed,” he hissed, trying to grasp for his options rather than the siren-song of sleep that was calling to him. He could sleep on the floor, of course—except Stoick was laying on the blanket, and he wasn’t about to curl up in the dirt without even a quilt. He could, theoretically, tell Valka to budge over, and she would probably let him, but the thought of explaining himself to Stoick in the morning sat as well as the liquor was doing.

 

Fed up, fuzzy, and furious, Gobber shoved Stoick’s dead weight with all his might, digging the truncated end of his leg into the pallet to give himself leverage. He got Stoick to roll half-over so he was facing the wall, and off the pillow. If Gobber let his hands linger across Stoick’s bare shoulders, the swell of his hip, then it wasn’t for more than a heartbeat or two. Then he wrapped himself in his irritation once again, and stubbornly crawled under his half of the trapped blanket.

 

Stoick was a warm, breathing line against his side; his familiar scent, unremarkable but that it belonged to Stoick, seemed to have already made its home among the sheets. Gobber squeezed his eyes shut tightly, cursing that he was too drunk to appreciate what this moment really was, the closest he could get to—

 

Stoick grunted and rolled back toward Gobber. Gobber growled and shoved him off. Right, he was still annoyed. Gobber held tightly to that thought as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

 

With effort, Stoick thrashed around again, almost elbowing Gobber in the face. Gobber shoved Stoick again, wondering if maybe this night would finally break him of his traitorous affection.

Then he turned on his side, facing away from Stoick, staring into the darkened house.

 

Almost in retaliation, Stoick heaved himself so that he rolled completely over, and flung one heavy arm over Gobber’s chest.

 

Gobber froze, breath gone, sense gone, everything in him narrowed down to the unwitting embrace. Even as he did so, Stoick seemed to get comfortable, shifting around until he was pressed against Gobber from his knees to his nape, the prickle of his Stoick’s beard rough against the back of Gobber’s neck.

 

Gobber bit back an exhalation that felt like a sob, because it was betrayal, to get everything he ever wanted like this.

 

“Mmn, Val?” Stoick mumbled into Gobber’s hair.

 

“No,” Gobber hissed shortly, hating himself.

 

“Gobber…” Stoick sighed happily, and the warm breath on Gobber’s neck subsided into a rough kiss before withdrawing again. Stoick squeezed Gobber tight, just once, and then dropped back to being deeply unconscious.

 

Gobber was not a strong man, not when he was being offered his own heart, however fleetingly it might stay unbruised. He clenched his jaw against betraying tears and instead sank into the fitful sleep of the disastrously intoxicated.

 

\----____----

 

Morning came slowly, dryly, with a deep ache. Gobber felt a throbbing in his head and a matching one in his hip, the first from dehydration, the second from overwork.

 

Somehow, despite feeling absolutely horrid, Gobber woke with a peace in his heart, and he wondered at it for one heartbeat, two, until he became aware of two important things at once.

 

First, that Stoick was still curled around his back, a huge and heavy warmth. Second, a lithe shadow blocked the soft light streaming in the open front door. Gobber’s eyes flew open to find Valka standing over them.

 

“Oh,” Gobber breathed.

 

“Nnh?” Stoick grunted, a sound of awareness. Gobber felt him shift behind him, the arm around his waist tightening briefly before Stoick froze.

 

“Val,” Stoick said, his voice rough with sleep and deep with dread.

 

Gobber wanted to squeeze his eyes shut again, wanted, for the first time in his life, to run away from battle instead of toward it. He did not, but only just. Instead, he stared into Valka’s face, trying to understand what he found there. She stood with arms crossed, head cocked, her expression strained. Gobber faltered—he had expected righteous anger and incandescent hurt. Instead, he imagined he saw concern and, even more strangely, a bright and satisfied understanding.

 

“I’m going to fetch water for tea,” Valka said. She walked out without saying anything else, and while Gobber contemplated letting the pillow swallow him forever, Stoick scrambled to his feet.

 

“Valka!” he barked, stumbling into his trousers and then his boots before streaking out the door. “Valka, wait—”

 

The bed was cold and Gobber felt the chill across his shoulders and knew he couldn’t stay. He threw the blanket back, casting around for his prosthetic. He had to scoot in a rather ungainly fashion to retrieve it from where he had tossed it the night before, and fastening the straps seemed to take longer than it ever had before.

 

Where he hadn’t the heart to consider his actions the night before, now his brain was working at the speed of Nadder-flight.

 

He had been caught, he thought over and over, the guilt of it heavy inside him. After all, he had done something wrong, taken advantage of a married man who had been too drunk to know anything was amiss.

 

And Stoick had sounded panicked as he followed Valka out the door, as though he too had felt guilt. Gobber scoffed as he stomped around the house, looking for the things of him that had been sifted into the clutter of their life there. He had nothing to feel guilty for.

 

He was trying to remember where he had left his lucky sock—the only one that survived The Incident—when Valka and Stoick returned, so silently that Gobber didn’t notice until they were in the door.

 

“Gah!” he yelped eloquently.

 

Valka’s eyes narrowed, taking in the obvious mess of Gobber’s possessions piled on the pallet. Stoick, a half step behind her, just looked bewildered and somewhat shell-shocked.

 

“You can finish tha’ later, if you decide you must,” Valka told him. “Sit now.” She gestured to the eating table, with the three stools Stoick had carved. He’d made three to start, before Gobber ever was injured. Gobber didn’t know why he noticed that just now.

 

He did as ordered, because he owed Valka this at least.

 

Valka hung the kettle as Stoick coaxed the tiny cookfire in their clay hearth into flames. Then, they sat across the table from Gobber, side-by-side and in sync. Valka tucked herself comfortably into the space under Stoick’s arm, and Stoick settled her there with deep familiarity.

Gobber looked away, certain he was intruding—until Valka startled him by reaching across the table to grab his hand. Gobber, nonplussed, let their fingers twine over the table-top.

 

When Valka spoke, her voice was gentle. “I’m not surprised, you know.”

 

It was only then, only when it was too late, that Gobber considered how this could have gone differently. It would have been so easy to laugh off the awkward morning, blame it on the liquor and the eel, tease Stoick incessantly, and move on. He could have pretended that last night was nothing more than the intimacy of idiot friends. Instead, he had looked Valka in the eyes and realized she knew.

 

“Surprised about what?” Gobber lied blatantly, then winced when Valka’s eyebrow was lifted at him. “Er.”

 

“We’ve talked, Gobber, Stoick and I. We know where we stand, with each other and with—well, with you.”

 

Every word that Valka was saying was stealing the breath from Gobber’s lungs. He felt like he must still be drunk, or dreaming.

 

“We thought you might—you’ve always been open with us, I thought, and I told him we’d best wait for you, but we’ve never been sure,” Valka was continuing, leaving Gobber’s comprehension in the dust. “And I thought not to push you, but maybe that was the wrong decision.”

 

Gobber was definitely still dreaming, for what little sense that Valka was making. Surely she wasn’t implying—

 

Gobber almost leaped out of his own skin when Stoick finally moved to grab his other hand, until they were all touching together around the wooden table. “What she means to ask is,” Stoick said, his voice low and fond, “Gobber, what do you want?”

 

Everything, Gobber’s brain supplied, and then stopped working all together, because he couldn’t even imagine what that meant. The moment of silence stretched out into painful awkwardness.

 

Stoick, bless him, tried again. “I love my wife with my whole heart, but we’ve been each others’ only for six years. It’s not as though we haven’t thought about…well, a third, maybe.”

 

“I certainly thought about watching it,” Valka chimed in, laughter in her voice.

 

“Aye, well, you’ve always had the dirtier mind of us,” Stoick shot back at her, but his cheekbones pinked. He pulled back, but took Gobber’s hand back again. “And…well, Gobber, what can I say. I’d always hoped it would be you.”

 

The silence pounded like a heartbeat in Gobber’s ears.

 

“Oh,” Gobber said helpfully, which was all he could manage.

 

He had spent the morning thinking that his infatuation had been found out and scorned, only to hear—

 

“Ye’re sayin’ that y’might want tae fuck me?” he blurted out.

 

Valka just about lost her breath, laughing loud and ugly as she bent to put her head on the table. Stoick rolled his eyes but looked fond, the expression directed both at his wife and at Gobber.

 

“If’n that’s what you want, you ninny, which is what we’re tryin’ to ask. You know, without pressurin’ you,” Stoick explained with exaggerated clarity.

 

It was clarity that Gobber sorely needed now. His stomach swooped with the buzzing adrenaline of a near miss. Perhaps Stoick did not share the darkest things that he felt, but he—and Valka, his shield sister—wanted something with him that was more than they had.

 

“You’re sayin’—you’re sayin’ ye’ve been wantin’ tae fuck me, but dinnae wanna pressure me into it,” Gobber reiterated.

 

Valka nodded without lifting her head from the table, laughter still yanking at the edges of her voice. “In so many words, yes. We’ve wanted a third for a bit now.” She sucked in a deep steadying breath and finally looked up, eyes wet with mirth. “I thought last night was about Stoick finally askin’ you.”

 

Gobber squawked. “Well, what’re ye waiting for?” he demanded. He turned to Stoick, who looked by turns mortified, nervous, and—if Gobber wasn’t imagining this whole event to fulfil his own fantasies—anticipatory. “I’d say you’re the cause of this morning stiffness, ye ken, so yes I want ye to do sommat about it!”

 

And just like that, his gaze caught on Stoick’s and held, and he was sure there was just as much want there as Gobber had ever dreamed to look for.

 

Stoick rose slowly from his seat, looking for all the world like a stalking dragon, his stride powerful and predatory. He rounded on Gobber, pressing into his personal space just so before yanking him up by the bicep.

           

“Tell me we aren’t forcin’ you into this,” Stoick challenged him. “Tell me you want it too.”

 

And Gobber held back his scoff, the breath of him all punched out by the intensity of Stoick’s gaze. “More than I can say,” Gobber told him, too honestly. It didn’t matter, though, because that was when Stoick kissed him.

 

Gobber had the immediate impression of soft lips and the rough scrape of beard. He gasped immediately, and when he parted his lips, Stoick kissed him yet harder, a strong hand on the small of his back dipping him so that he had to cling to Stoick’s shoulders to stay upright. Gobber felt Stoick’s tongue against his and gave in right there, letting it happen for as long as it would.

 

When Stoick pulled back some moments later, they were both panting. Across the table, Valka had her chin in one hand, grinning openly with unabashed smugness.

 

“I—” Gobber tried. The molten warmth in Stoick’s gaze almost brought him to his knees.

 

“I’m going to ask you again: what do you want?”

 

“I want you to fuck me,” Gobber said in a rush, absolutely lost.

 

“I was hoping that’s what you’d say,” Stoick told him, which was a revelation all by itself.

 

It could have used more planning, certainly, more negotiation, more talking, but Stoick, son of Oskar, was dragging Gobber to bed and Gobber wanted it too badly to be the good one, the rational one. What could he say, anyway, in the face of how Stoick crushed Gobber to him, kissing him with a vicious heat, a kind of pent-up passion that clicked their teeth together, bruised their lips. Gobber growled into the kiss, not content to stand there and take it—he his fingers into Stoick’s hair, twisting his head back at just the right angle to take control of the kiss. Stoick’s answering groan was swallowed up when Gobber pressed his advantage yet further, backing them the few steps over to Stoick’s bed and heaving, so they both stumbled into the tick mattress in a tangle of limbs and thickening heat.

 

Gobber ended up on his hands and knees, braced above Stoick at an angle. They were face-to-face now, and Stoick’s deep green eyes were blown almost black with clear want. Gobber’s leg throbbed in protest, but he ignored it for the moment to slide one palm down Stoick’s side, dipping just slightly into the waistband of his pants and feeling the hot skin of his hip bone.

Stoick’s breath shuddered out of him and Gobber had wanted nothing more in his whole life.

 

The creak of furniture behind him distracted him for a moment, and out of the corner of his eye he found Valka settling a kitchen stool into the corner, folding herself onto it, eyes wide and expression pleased. Gobber braced himself for the flush of embarrassment as he remembered that Val was here, too, watching, but it never came. He simply did not care—Valka was there, and she was a part of this, and that felt like it was the right thing.

 

Stoick bucked his hips slightly, leaning into the touch as his broad hand came up to yank Gobber back into a fierce kiss.

 

They were lost to each other once again, and Gobber felt all of it in an unceasing wave rather than discrete parts. He knew that he pulled off his tunic at one point; some time, with more effort, Stoick had done the same. The coarse hair across the man’s chest was a darker auburn than Gobber expected, and Gobber spent long moments running his hands across it before turning his attentions to dip down and kiss one of Stoick’s nipples.

 

Stoick hissed and bucked up against Gobber. “Too—too sensitive,” he ground out, shoving Gobber’s head away. Gobber, undeterred, began kissing down Stoick’s soft stomach instead. Stoick gasped his surprise, which sent an answering thrill up Gobber’s spine that Stoick was making that noise for him.

 

He pulled back to look his fill of the man who was splayed out before him. Stoick was flushed down to his chest, his lips already darkened ad bruised, wet and open as he panted his breath. The freckles across his shoulder stood out darkly, and Gobber gave into the temptation to smooth his palms across that smooth, hot skin. Stoick shuddered, which prompted Gobber to change tack.

 

“Gobber—” Stoick groaned. His eyes were squeezed shut. “What’re you---”

 

Gobber, however, had just been struck with both a brilliant idea and a fierce, consuming compulsion. He scrambled off Stoick’s hips, only noticing the pain in his thigh and knee from the way he was kneeling now that he had relieved it.

 

“Stand up,” Gobber directed Stoick.

 

Stoick blinked blankly up at him.

 

“Darling, stand up,” Valka said warmly from her place in the corner. Gobber flicked a glance at her, knowing she was reading his mind. She nodded back in permission, her eyes bright and skirt rucked up around her bare thighs.

 

Stoick finally complied, unsteady on his feet. Gobber would not make it any easier for him either – he sat on the edge of the bed and slid his hands over Stoick’s hips, before cupping his ass and dragging him forward to press his lips against the front of Stoick’s leggings.

 

“Oh,” Stoick groaned, bucking forward.

 

“Aye,” Valka supplied from behind them.

 

“Pants. Off,” Gobber prompted, and wriggled out of his own when Stoick stepped back to follow directions.

 

It didn’t feel strange to be naked in Stoick’s bed, nor to have Valka still there, her hand now sliding up her own thigh. What was surreal, however, was to have Stoick’s hard, uncut cock finally in front of him, dark and dripping. Gobber took a deep breath, the scent of arousal slamming through him and causing his stomach to clench. He gave into his impulses, and leaned in to lick across the head of Stoick’s cock.

 

The sound Stoick made even at the slightest contact was intoxicating, dragged out from the deepest parts of him. His hips jerked, and Gobber couldn’t stop the satisfied grin from creeping across his face before, without warning, he slid forward and took Stoick’s cock down the back of his throat.

 

Stoick roared his surprised pleasure, and although Gobber realized quickly that he really hadn’t practiced this trick in _far_ too long, he wasn’t about to give up now. Gobber curled his fingers against Stoick’s firm ass, shucking him forward so that he sank in ever deeper into Gobber’s throat before Gobber pulled back to gulp air. Stoick moaned as if in pain, then yelled again as Gobber dove right back down onto the leaking cock that he had wanted inside him since he knew what cocks were for. The choking, the ache, the scent of sweat and acrid sex, sent Gobber deeper into his own pleasure, and he was sure he’d die from it.

 

“Not—” Stoick growled above him, hands fisted in Gobber’s hair. “Not like this.” He yanked Gobber off, and Gobber gasped even as he was grabbed beneath the arms and hauled bodily into the bed. Gobber shuddered—he’d known Stoick was a strong man, but had always thought himself to be the man’s match. But Stoick put him where he wanted him so easily, and rather that being a blow to Gobber’s ego, it was instead mindlessly arousing.

 

Flat on his back, he was at Stoick’s mercy, and Stoick shoved open Gobber’s pants before pulling them off completely. He rose over him, and Gobber was distracted by the slide of bare, sweat-soaked skin against skin, the soft friction of Stoick’s chest hair, the hair of his arms, against Gobber’s.

 

“Tell me,” Stoick said nonsensically, his green eyes dark and unfocused. “Tell me I can. I want—”

 

“Whatever you want,” Gobber promised, trying for flippant, but instead so, so earnest.

 

“Inside,” Stoick finally managed to say, and Gobber suddenly couldn’t stop shaking. He’d done so much in his wild teen years, so many flings in yak sheds and in beach caves. But never had he allowed another man inside him, never had he even thought to.

 

“ _Please_ ,” Gobber begged, and then there was warmth at his shoulder.

 

Valka was there, a small crystal vial held out to Stoick. Her skirt and top were gone, discarded, and she stood in her smallclothes, smirking, her pupils just as wide and dark as her husbands’. She pressed the vial into Stoick’s hand, then leaned across Gobber’s prone form to kiss Stoick slowly, thoroughly, her tongue in his mouth and her thigh brushing Gobber’s temple. It was good, warm, right to be between them, surrounded.

 

When she broke the kiss, Gobber tried to say something to her.

 

“Val, I— _ohhh_ —”

 

He couldn’t do anything but moan as Stoick slid one slick finger into him.

 

Gobber lost time, so focused on the sensations running through him. They were _strange_ , not inherently pleasurable, except he was aflame with the thought that it was Stoick who was filling him, stretching him, making Gobber ready to take his cock. And Gobber wanted it, so badly, unconcerned that they were moving too fast or too hard. This might be the only time that Gobber would ever have him; he would take _everything_.

 

And then, as Stoick leaned over him and looked at him with bright eyes, Gobber did take everything. Stoick pushed into him in a slow, inexorable slide, and Gobber felt like Ragnarok had come for him at last.

 

It was _too much_ , heat and pain and fullness, a pressure so intense that Gobber was sure he was bleeding, because it could not feel like this and leave him unscathed. It hurt in the most intimate of ways, a panicked newness, and Gobber was a drift in a rising frenzy until he felt small, cool hands on his brow, pushing into his hair.

 

“It’s alright, Gobber, you’re doing so well,” Valka soothed him. She was beside the bed, so close Gobber could turn his head and kiss her thigh, were he not wrapped up in everything that was running through him. Stoick had frozen above Gobber, rigid and trembling, magnificent in the leashed power he held bound in his heavy, bracing arms.

 

“Gobber,” he breathed.

 

“ _Move_ , Gobber begged.

 

Stoick pulled out too quickly, then shoved back in as Gobber _howled_.

 

He would die from this, and he never wanted it to end.

 

Stoick set a slow pace but an inexorable one, sliding into Gobber without mercy or cessation. Gobber reveled in it, Valka’s hand in his hair the only thing that grounded him. The woman herself had slipped her free hand into her smallclothes, and made small, satisfied sounds as Stoick fucked into Gobber again, and again.

 

Gobber wanted his mouth on Valka but didn’t know how to ask, his voice gone, his body limp, taking and taking and wanting more. He fisted his own cock in one hand and started to jerk himself off but it was a mistake, it was too much, because his orgasm went from a pleasant urgency to an inevitable inferno and he wouldn’t, couldn’t hold it back even a moment more—Stoick’s groan sounded punched out of him, and he shoved into Gobber one last time before freezing, his thighs flush against the back of Gobber’s, and Valka learned forward to yank him into a kiss that swallowed his moan as he came hot inside of Gobber.

 

Gobber came right then with a sob that stole every bit of strength he had left. His vision greyed, and he barely felt Stoick fall forward, pressing them chest-to-chest, wrung out and sweating and filthy with passion. The weight on him made it hard to breathe, but maybe that was just the swell of his heart straining to beat next to Stoick’s own.

 

Gobber’s left flank was awash in soft warmth, and Valka poured herself, now naked as well, onto the bed to press herself against Gobber’s side. She panted against his neck, and smelled of earth and cum.

 

There was no way to keep awake, so Gobber didn’t try.

 

\----____----

 

Gobber woke as he had only once before, barely a year earlier. It had been the morning after Stoick proposed, just the three of them on an island that was barely more than a haystack, just in sight of Berk. Stoick had wanted him there, when it happened, and then Val had lost her cloak to the wind, and between the celebrating and the chill, they found themselves pressed together like dogs, sleeping by the dwindling fire. Valka had her whole face mashed into Gobber’s shoulder; Stoick had his arm slung around them both. At the time, Gobber’s heart had howled it’s approval, its indignation. At the time, Gobber had squirreled away every breath as treasure he would not see again.

 

As afternoon stretched it’s shadowy fingers through the window, however, Gobber woke once more to the shuddering snores of Stoick against his ear, Valka drooling on his chest, limbs asleep and heart alight in pure, stupid joy.

 

They woke piecemeal but together, trading smiles and groans as aching muscles protested their activity. Stoick took his wife’s cheek in his broad hand and she burrowed into it, kissing his palm. Valka patted Gobber’s shoulder, and Stoick dragged his fingers across Gobber’s chest.

 

“Alright?” he asked, and Gobber soared at the attention.

 

“When can we do it again?” he asked.

 

The answer was _soon_.

 

\----____----

 

And so the summer went, splendid and hollow. Gobber never went back to his pallet, despite there being no room for the three of them to sleep comfortably in the bed. Things were _good_ , were _fun_ , and if they never saw fit to discuss any further _who, what,_ or _what next_ , well, they could be forgiven for being distracted, couldn’t they?

 

Gobber never stopped being in love with Stoick, son of Oskar, and he thought maybe Stoick knew. But never again did they speak beyond “ _now?_ ” or “ _touch me_ ” or “ _come here_ ”. Val stayed close, and though Gobber never lay with her the same way, they spent many long, lazy evenings working together to take Stoick apart, piece by piece.

 

Midsummer festival came and went, and they and Mulch and Tristan—who had taken a bad fall in battle and who now could not be parted from a metal bucket he wore like a helmet—partook in an Eelhalla so excessive that the hangover lasted three days and Oskar himself came to drag them all back to work.

 

And one morning, Valka came out of the outhouse, woozy and pale, and paused right in the doorway, eyes far away.

 

“Oh,” she said as Gobber and Stoick traded concerned looks.

 

“I think I’m pregnant,” she said, and Stoick sniffed hard before his face crumpled into tears.

 

Summer ended, and the three of them stood outside that sod house and gazed as it lay empty. Valka and Stoick were moved back into Oskar’s house, Valka to be close to her mother, Stoick to patronize his father, who would step down as Chief of Berk later that year. Gobber was firm on his own two feet—or rather, the foot the AllFather had blessed him with in the womb, and the one Stoick had made for him with his own hands.

 

“You’ll be alright, in your father’s house?” Stoick asked him gruffly, staring into the heath rather than looking at Gobber, his arm thrown around Valka’s shoulders.

 

“You’ll be alright, in yours?” Gobber scoffed, and saw so many things ending, as he always knew they would.

 

But Valka glowed, just beginning to show, and that was a blessing all its own. Stoick stood tall, shoulder straight, his height and his bearing already garnering village blessings at his vastness, his Vastness. Gobber watched them become themselves right in front of his eyes and he’d been there for that, too. Some people never got what he did—to be so close to the ones he loved, to see them grow happy and straight-backed. And if, in the end, Valka and Stoick grew without him, that was alright—they’d let him in, for a summer, and it was a greater gift than he’d ever known to pray for. It was enough time. It would have to be.

 

In February, Valka had a son.

 

None of them knew what a hero that boy would grow into. None of them foresaw the strange new world that was at their lintel even now. They did not know that Valka would leave them too soon, only to return almost-too-late.

 

Gobber didn’t know yet what grief could do to a man and how it could drive him away even from his friend, his shield-brother. Gobber didn’t yet know how deeply and unconditionally he could love a child that was not his blood, but most certainly his own in all the ways that mattered.

           

Gobber knew very little, all told, but for one summer he knew happiness, and it carried him through the rest of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I know according to "Boneknapper" he lost his arm first, don't @ me
> 
> Hey all. I was going to say "I'm not sure what this is" but I am actually very sure; explaining it is the trick. 
> 
> This is a 'might-have-been', a fancy of thought of what could have happened to Valka and Stoick and Gobber, the year before Hiccup was born. I don't think, as an author, that it _did_ happen, but I wanted to know how it could have. I wanted to see Gobber have everything he wanted, just for one summer. I'm selfish that way.
> 
> It's not One Man compliant, but I'm putting them in the same collection because I think this is almost an AU to it, an alternate history of the one Gobber reveals to Eret. 
> 
> I don't know what else to say; it's just.... important to me.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the au where they fall in love and stay together always](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781978) by [sarahenany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany)




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